If any researcher interested in this topic and likes to participate as a guest editor in a special issue to be published next year, he is kindly requested to let me know.
Introduction
Change is one law of life along the history of man. The conditions of an individual’s life, his customs, traditions, and values are constantly changing, and consequently the referents of many words in language and the contexts in which they are used are subject to change in the course of time. Semantic change is an evitable process which many people find the most interesting. The interest stems from its connection with life, literature, and culture of communities.
I’m looking for studies that investigate the semantic change that had occurred in the languages of Mesopotamia and Levan by following the changes from the ancient eras of Sumer and Akkad till the contemporary time. To do that, the researcher needs to compile a lexicon of at least 100 words in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages or any other ancient languages such as Aramaic. The semantic change in these words should be linguistically and socioculturally examined and evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Historical Background
While the two ethnic groups of Sumer and Akkad had been interacting religiously, culturally, and linguistically to create the history of ancient Iraq, the Arameans had been developing their historical status in the northwest (modern Syria) in what some historians call the “land of Aram”. Apart from the tense relations and continuous wars between the new Mesopotamian citizens at post-Akkadian era in Assur (2012-605 B.C.) and Babylon (1670-320 B.C.) on the eastern side of Euphrates and the Arameans on the western side, Aramaic language had got involved in the linguistic society of Mesopotamia.
It's important to notice that the relations between the Arameans and Arabs appeared for the first time in some Assyrian inscriptions at (880 B.C.) in which there is a reference to a rebellion of an Aramaic city-state (Bait Zemani) against the Assyrian king Assurbanipal. The Arabs of Hijaz supported the Arameans due to several linguistic and religious mutuals. Thus, the Syriac-Aramaic language was the most popular language in the Fertile Crescent during the first years of Islam in 7th century A.D. (Thuwainy, 2013:162-63).
Example: Sumerian [Da.Ab.E (n.)]- Akkadian [Adapu (n.)]- Arabic[Adeb (n.)]- Iraqi Arabic [adeb (n.) & te’deb].
The original Sumerian meaning related to speech was transferred to the Akkadian language to refer to music attached with the meaning of wisdom. In classical Arabic, the meaning is associated with education and righteous behavior, whereas it is more associated with the different genres of literature in standard Arabic. In the Iraqi dialect, the meaning is usually associated with giving orders or threats to an inferior person to behave himself/herself. Possible causes of change: Cultural causes, degree of formality (the Iraqi-dialect usage is bound to informal contexts).
For more details have a look at my paper:
Preprint Exploring Sumerian-Akkadian Traces in the Iraqi-Arabic Lexicon
Such an interesting topic. I would be pleased to collaborate if possible. I have expertise in Moroccan Arabic and etymology in Arabic. If relevant, please let me know more about the project.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Phytochemistry
- Extracts